The Embrace (14 page)

I caught him glancing at me several times throughout my visit. I could hear his heart speeding up as he tried to hide his crush. His intense desire was flattering. I loved feeling as if my victims were infatuated by me and this youth’s love was already at it’s peak with no effort on my part.

I played on his crush, laughing at his jokes and letting my hand linger on his arm. Gabriel waited at the shoe area on one of the comfy padded seats, but he could see me flirting the whole time.

I sensed no animosity from him. I knew he was interested in observing my behaviour. I would have stopped if I had sensed Gabriel was uncomfortable, but he watched my flirting like an experiment, so I carried on.

Eventually I secured several new outfits to fill my bare wardrobe, all to be delivered to the apartment by my doting follower, and I left the shop wearing a flashy red dress in a pencil skirt style. It pinched in all the right places, and I could sense the young shop assistant’s heart racing.

I walked out of the shop hand in hand with Gabriel, flaunting my love in this youth’s face to increase his jealousy. I felt on top of the world with so much attention on me. I had come to realise that I thrived on a man’s desire for me, and now I was desperate to satisfy the hunger.

We spent the rest of the night choosing our victims. With the ever decreasing hours of night we had to become quicker and stealthier about hunting. I was used to taking my time selecting victims, but now I had to take more risks. Taking risks had never worked out well for me before.

I let Gabriel choose the victim to save time. He was far more efficient and skilful with this kind of thing, so it was much easier to let him work alone.

We found a young couple leaving a quaint French restaurant and managed to corner them as they walked to the taxi rank.

The whole kill lacked the excitement and flair of our usual attempts, but the two victims were in the prime of life and their blood was enough. My physical hunger was eased and so I had no reason to complain.

After feeding, we returned to the apartment. I felt at home in this new place. Just walking past the lift, the scene of our first kill in the city, reignited my sense of purpose.

When we reached the apartment I put my clothes away in the new wardrobe (the shop assistant had delivered them that very night despite my obvious snub of his feelings) while Gabriel reclined on our new bed, reading one of his precious books.

As I finished I took a moment to look at him. He was certainly beautiful, to both humans and vampires. His hair was soft and downy, framing his face perfectly. His lips were full yet not too large and I knew that when he opened his mouth it formed a perfect smile.

His sharp, expressive eyes were focused on the book, scanning the page at full speed. He was obviously engrossed in the story and I recognised a look of concentration I often saw when he was searching for his victims. I read the front and saw a flurry of Spanish words.

I laughed softly to make my presence known, although I suspected he had known I was there all along. After all his senses were far stronger than mine.

I had changed into one of the soft flannel shirts I found in the closet, probably something once owned by the man we killed. I didn’t recognise the scent so I assumed it was his.

I moved over to the bed and kissed Gabriel, turning on all my feminine charm. He dropped his book on the bed and returned my kiss.

Our relationship had seemed a little distant in the weeks preceding our move to London, as we chose to spend most of the night hunting. To be perfectly honest I had been glad about this distance. Ever since I experienced Gabriel’s display of compulsion I had been slightly unsettled around him, and I didn’t think I could hide this unease during more intimate moments.

I had been struggling with the secret of my close shave, the sloppy killing of Ben, as well as the vampire who had been watching me. I worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep all of these secrets under control if I let my guard down around him.

Now I felt as if the heavy burdens hanging over me had disintegrated. I was happy to be so close to Gabriel again. I hadn’t imagined just how positive this new home could be for us.

I picked his book up from it’s spot on the sheets.

“Your book looks...interesting.” I said. “Spanish, right? You know you never told me about when you were in South America. What happened over there?”

Gabriel’s face took on a more serious expression. I could sense this topic was a no go area. I knew almost nothing about Gabriel’s past, and it didn’t seem like I was going to find out any more that night.

Gabriel pulled me on top of him and kissed me with more force. I did in some part want to know about Gabriel’s past but at that moment I wanted nothing more than to let myself relax with him. In a matter of seconds I forgot my questions and let myself enjoy being in his arms. We spent the last moments of that night together, enjoying our desire for one another.

Gabriel’s kisses were perfection.  We fell asleep together after our night together, wrapped around each other as if our bodies were created just to be in that position. I felt as if Gabriel and I were each part of an intricate puzzle and I had finally found the piece that would fit with me perfectly.

We slept side by side in that bed for the second night. I was already beginning to let go of all the baggage from my old home and my old life. As Gabriel went to sleep I could feel the details of my worries becoming more hazy. Finally my happiness was clouding over all my doubts.

Despite this happiness, as I closed my eyes that night, just at the point of sleep, I felt that strange feeling again. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up and I felt as if somewhere, somehow, someone was watching me. They couldn’t be in the apartment but someone out there was thinking about me so strongly that I could feel their presence as if they were in the room.

I knew it was the vampire who had been watching me weeks ago. I don’t know how I knew, but it felt as if he had imprinted his presence in my brain. I had moved across the country, but it didn’t matter. He was following me.

**

Our life in London slipped back in to a comfortable routine. It wasn’t in the repressive way that my former home had established, it was as if both of us felt at peace in this big city. A vampire should never be cooped up or made to feel imprisoned, it goes against our nature. I would come to learn that a vampire’s taste in nests is as different as their taste in victims. Some enjoyed the freedom that came with a hom in more remote places, but I was always attracted to the life contained within a large city.

Our home was beautiful and it seemed like every night I found something new that I liked about it. I would find a hidden ornament and fall in love all over again. Gabriel was not as interested in the little aesthetic details as me. He found pleasure in the general atmosphere of the place, and he loved to travel the building and chat to the people he ran in to. Gabriel was an artist when it came to the kill and deception was his forte. He found great enjoyment in convincing people he was a new neighbour, making the women fall for him and the men admire him.

It took him only a week to wrap most of the building around his little finger. I decided to explore the building for myself one night while Gabriel was reading. I was checking on the mail to see if our previous tenant had received anything, and I spotted three women, all of whom were the yummy mummy types, huddled in the foyer. I decided to eavesdrop on them, just out of a simple curiosity.

“Have you seen the new guy in the building?” One asked, a tall woman who I guessed to be the leader of the group.

“Oh you mean the tall guy, with the dark hair?” Her friend chimed in. This one was the most beautiful of the group but something about her seemed understated, and I could tell most of her confidence was false. Inside she was unsure of her place in this group of women and desperately wanted to cling on to that feeling of belonging.

“He is so gorgeous. A bit Tom Cruise but, like, ten times hotter!” The third woman said and all three laughed. This was the stereotypical loud mouth of the group, the one the girls put up with but didn’t really trust with their secrets.

I knew they were talking about Gabriel. After all, who else was new in the building and could stir up such excitement amongst women?

I felt eyes graze my back and I realised the leader of the group had noticed my presence in the lobby. She gasped. She thought she was being quiet, and if I had been human I probably wouldn’t have heard, but my vampire ears detected the noise and I knew they had spotted me.

The loud mouth was the first to speak. “Isn’t she...? Oh my god! Yes, she’s that girl who is with him all the time.” She gasped.

“Oh yes it’s his girlfriend. She follows him around like a little puppy dog.” One of them agreed. I smiled to myself. I was much more like a Rottweiler than a puppy dog.

“She is beautiful though, isn’t she? She’s like a goddess or something.” Another said. This made me feel slightly awkward, but I was flattered nonetheless.

The loud mouth then chimed in, desperate to get her two cents in. “Well, yes but she’s a bit waif like isn’t she? A bit too skinny if you get what I mean.”

I could feel nothing but a wave of jealousy from this woman, so strong that I could almost read her thoughts: Why couldn’t she get someone like Gabriel? Her husband and kids flashed before me as the jealousy surged. I realised how trapped she felt, and I pitied her. Although I would never have a husband or a family like her I could at least take comfort in the freedom I had. No one could imprison me the way she had been.

I decided to leave. If I’d stayed any longer it might have been suspicious. I turned around and headed back up the stairs. The lift was no longer out of order after it’s crime scene status had been revoked, but the people of the building refused to travel in it and to fit in I always chose the stairs too.

I shot a pleasant but insincere  smile to these women. “Hello” I said in a friendly way, making it abundantly clear by my expression that I had heard everything they said.

I reached our apartment with the thought of these women still in my mind and I almost laughed. They were the epitome of a uniquely human idea. To vampires there is no gossip or scandal. What could possibly happen that would be considered scandalous to creatures that spend their lives killing human beings on a nightly basis?

I had been a vampire for about 5 and a half months, and other than my stalker I hadn’t even come close to an encounter with another vampire. I hadn’t heard any news of them either, because there was no need for them.

Gabriel was still reading when I got back, intently focusing on some foreign book I couldn’t identify. It didn’t look like Spanish this time around. There was so much about Gabriel that I didn’t know, and probably never would. He had told me about his past only when it would help me with a problem I had, and I knew that he had skipped over most of his 200 year history.

Gabriel looked up when I came into the flat, probably because I was still laughing quietly to myself after my encounter in the hall. 

I dropped the letters on the table next to the door. They were building up in to quite a pile, but none of the letters seemed important. They provided little information to us other than the name of the home’s former tenant. It seemed he was one Harold Lovell, but other than that nothing seemed to jump out.

I strode up to Gabriel and joined him on the sofa, snuggling up to his side and reading the book over his shoulder. It was completely illegible to me as it was in some language I suspected was quite ancient, but Gabriel still tensed when he saw I was reading over his shoulder. I could tell he didn’t like me interrupting his precious reading.

He put the book down on the table and turned his attention to me.

“What are you laughing at?” Gabriel asked. I could tell he was still unhappy with me for interrupting his private moment.

“Some women in the lobby were talking about us. They think you’re quite a catch.” I told him.

He laughed and wrapped his arm around me.

“Well, I don’t about that but I know you are. You’re exquisite.” He smiled. I hadn’t received such a compliment from him in a long time. I could see in his eyes that he was being sincere.

We sat in silence for quite a while, but the emptiness was content. I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes. He went back to his reading when he was certain I wasn’t looking over his shoulder.

I began to sort through my thoughts while Gabriel and I sat together. My lack of knowledge about Gabriel was certainly jarring on me and I began to wonder if the vampire who was stalking me was something to do with him. Maybe Gabriel didn’t tell me about his past because he thought he was protecting me. Either way I had to know.

I put my hand on Gabriel’s knee and sighed, alerting him to the fact I was about to speak. I knew he wouldn’t be impressed with me interrupting his reading again.

“Gabe. I’ve been thinking about something. Have you ever met other vampires? I mean other than the person who turned you. In the past few years, or decades, or something” I asked him, trying to control the nervous tremble in my voice.

Gabriel didn’t answer me straight away. I could tell he was trying to push back his surge of memories before he said something he would regret. He didn’t want to give too much away. Finally he sighed and put his book back down on the table.